The Dodgers Offense Appears to be Mired in Another Slump

The Dodgers will head to New York on Thursday to prepare for a three-game series with the New York Mets.  While the Mets are known for an anemic offense, the Dodgers have been in the same boat for the last week.

The Dodgers lost two of the three games to the Chicago Cubs and they were nearly swept.  If it wasn’t for the heroics of Kyle Farmer with the Dodgers down to their last strike in game one, the Dodgers would have been swept by the Cubs.

The main culprit to the Cubs series was leaving runners on base and failing to come through when runners were in scoring position.  In the three-game series, the Dodgers left a whopping 34 runners on base and were only 5-35 with runners in scoring position.  That gave them a .143 batting average with runners in scoring position for the Cubs series.

The Dodgers offense has been mired in a funk ever since they lit up Bartolo Colon and the Texas Rangers for twelve runs on June 12th.  Since that game nearly a week ago, the Dodgers have scored 15 total runs in six games which comes out to 2.5 runs a game.  Even with the Dodgers rotation starting to get healthy, you are not going to win many games scoring 2.5 runs a game; Ask Jacob Degrom and Noah Syndergaard how that feels.

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The last seven games the only two hitters who have been productive are Kiké Hernandez and Logan Forsythe.  Kiké is hitting .316 with two home runs in the last seven games, and Forsythe is leading the team with a .389 average in the last seven games.  Besides those two, every other Dodger starter is hitting below .222.  Justin Turner is exactly at .222 and the worst hitters the past seven games have been Cody Bellinger (.067 AVG) and Yasmani Grandal (.111 AVG).

Max Muncy and Matt Kemp have led the Dodgers offense lately but even they are struggling as Muncy has a .125 average the last week of games and Kemp has a .167 average.  The Dodgers need to quit relying on the home run ball and start manufacturing runs if they are going to bust out of their latest slump.

The Cubs showed the Dodgers what perfect execution does as they were putting on a hitting clinic yesterday with perfect hit and runs and moving runners over to cash them in on the next at-bat.  The Dodgers have a group of sluggers who can hit the ball out at will but lately, they haven’t moved runners over or they have had some poor luck like two double plays off of line drives right at a player.

Next: The Dodgers rotation options when everyone is healthy

The Dodgers have a perfect opportunity to get their offense back on track with the Mets on the schedule for this weekend.  Saturday they face Jacob DeGrom who is arguably the best pitcher in the National League this season, but on Friday and Saturday, they face two below average pitchers.  This weekend is a great time for the Dodgers offense to get hot again and start another series win streak.